Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Charles Lamb (17751834)Hester
W
Their place ye may not well supply,
Though ye among a thousand try,
With vain endeavour.
Yet cannot I by force be led
To think upon the wormy bed,
And her together.
A rising step, did indicate
Of pride and joy no common rate,
That flushed her spirit.
I shall it call:—if ’twas not pride,
It was a joy to that allied,
She did inherit.
Which doth the human feeling cool,
But she was train’d in Nature’s school,
Nature had blest her.
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind,
A hawk’s keen sight ye cannot blind,
Ye could not Hester.
To that unknown and silent shore,
Shall we not meet, as heretofore,
Some summer morning,
Hath struck a bliss upon the day,
A bliss that would not go away,
A sweet fore-warning?